The last, final, end of game 'poll talk'

Just think -- after tomorrow, you won't be bombarded with my poll obsessions any more. I didn't used to think much of them either until I encountered the super-brainy guys who crunch numbers and also analyze the numbers they crunch at RealClearPolitics and FiveThirtyEight.

So, here goes -- last round.

New tracking polls reported by RCP today show Obama edging up another notch, with 14 polls taken over the past 5 days averaging out at 7.3%. The more recent ones, done just yesterday and today, are even higher: 7%, 8%, and 9%. Two of those are related to the conservative organizations WallStreetJournal and FOX News.

Late tightening, with uncommitteds moving to McCain, doesn't seem to be happening. The marginal tightening in some battle-ground states, where McCain is making a last ditch stand, seems offset by Obama also picking up more. He is now at 50 to 55% in 13 of those 14 polls. If you're over 50%, you can only lose if a lot of those voters desert you.

Meanwhile, over at 538, here's Nate Silver's final take: Barak Obama is on the verge of a victory, perhaps a decisive victory. In the electoral vote race, Nate predicts Obama will take all the states Kerry won in 2008, holding on to Philadelphia, where Obama retains a +8% despite McCain's late push there. He also predicts that he is almost certain to take Iowa and New Mexico, which will give him 264 of the 270 needed to win.

He then has the relative ease of picking up 6 more votes from among the "in play" states, in several of which he has a significant lead: CO, VA, NV, OH, FL, NC, MO, and IN. Taking NV or NM at 5 each would give him a tie, while taking any one of the others alsone would give him more than 270 and the election. Or the combination of any two would give him the win with votes to spare.

In contrast, Nate says:

Winning any one of them may be fairly difficult for John McCain, but winning all of them at once, as John McCain probably must do, is nearly impossible. . . . McCain's chances, in essence, boil down to the polling being significantly wrong, for such reasons as a Bradley Effect or "Shy Tory" Effect, or extreme complacency among Democratic voters.

However, even if these phenomenon are manifest to some extent, it is unlikely that they are worth a full 6-7 points for McCain. Moreover, there are at least as many reasons to think that the polls are understating Obama's support, because of such factors as the cellphone problem, his superior groundgame operation, and the substantial lead that he has built up among early voters.

McCain's chances of victory are estimated at 1.9 percent, their lowest total of the year.

I saw an analysis of polling with and without cellphone calls, and the data suggest that including exclusive cellphone users increases Obama's vote by about 2%.

I rest my case. Let's all try to get some sleep tonight. We may be up late tomorrow night.

Ralph